Former Kennedy Center employees allege that the very leak problem now being used to justify shutting down the arts institution was actually canceled from repair months ago by the same official now citing it as an urgent safety emergency.
A lawyer representing the unidentified former staffers sent internal documents and a letter to Congress on Thursday, part of growing scrutiny over President Trump’s control of the Washington cultural institution, The New York Times reported. The center’s main building has remained closed, with officials attributing the shutdown to worsening structural problems they say prior leadership never properly fixed.
Center executive director Matt Floca, appointed by Trump, defended the closure, saying newly discovered damage justified the sudden urgency.
“The safety of our patrons, artists, and staff comes first,” Floca said. “The Kennedy Center has known for years that the roof overhang leaked. What we did not know until this summer was how far the damage had spread inside it.”
But the whistleblowers’ attorney, David Seide, says internal records tell a very different story. According to the letter, Floca secured $9.3 million to fix the leaking roof overhangs through Trump’s major domestic policy law signed in July 2025, then approved nearly $300,000 the following month for a firm to design the replacement work.
“Yet six months ago — with the funds in hand — he stopped the remediation process from moving forward,” Seide wrote.
A staffer’s internal message, included as an exhibit in the letter, indicated Floca personally ordered the funding request pulled back in April, though no reason was given at the time. The center disputes the whistleblowers’ framing entirely, with Floca explaining the contractor’s bid came in three times over budget and that the work has since been folded into a larger renovation plan submitted in June, one that includes $14 million earmarked specifically for structural leak repairs alongside fixes to the HVAC system, elevators, electrical infrastructure and theater equipment.
“The premise that we delayed the design work is incorrect,” the center said.
This marks the second whistleblower letter concerning the Kennedy Center in recent months. An earlier submission in June detailed cosmetic spending under Trump’s chairmanship, including gold plumbing fixtures installed in presidential boxes and a repainting of the center’s exterior columns from gold to white. The new letter alleges roughly a million and a half dollars meant for waterproofing work got redirected to help cover the multimillion-dollar cost of that repainting project instead.
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